They conveniently leave out the list of excellent games that cost less than $20, of which there is a lifetime’s worth.

We wrote an engine from scratch so that we could create fully destructible environments and still have good control over performance.

Writing an engine from scratch is usually a bad choice. I’m glad there are people trying to do this, but I’d expect that 95% of the time, writing an engine from scratch means you get out less than you put in.

I have no opinions on this specific game (I haven’t played it), but I do think the economics of steam reflect reality: there is a massive oversupply of games, and talented programmers (and artists and musicians and…) would largely produce more value by devoting their talents to other things.